by Jason | Jun 16, 2010 | Blog
As mentioned in our one-month anniversary post, product reviews will become a new addition to Peanut Free Life. Our first review is also a first in a series of reviews of products from Enjoy Life Foods.
Quick disclaimer, Enjoy Life Foods did not provide me with any product or other compensation for these reviews. I purchased these items at our local Publix Grocery Store.
Our family thinks it is important to support, when we can, local companies and restaurants, as well as those that support causes important to us, food allergies for one. Enjoy Life Foods is one such company. Their dedication to creating a product that is safe for those with food allergies is admirable and one that we as a family and food allergy community should support.
I brought home several boxes of the different varieties of Enjoy Life Foods Cookies for lunch today. My son (6 years old) immediately asked, “What are those for?” I told him that we were going to try some of these and I wanted him and his sister to tell me what the though of them. I asked both my son and daughter (9 years old) which one they wanted to try first. They both immediately agreed on the Double Chocolate Brownie Cookies (affiliate link)
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I opened the box and gave one to each kid. My daughter’s first comment was, “It’s kind of dark, in a chocolate way.” She was right. The cookies do have a dark chocolate overtone I think is great. I think she was surprised by the taste and meant it in a negative way. Nevertheless, she ate the whole thing and was eying another one. My son simply said, “This is yummy, can we try another one?” and “I can barely eat this in one bite.” My wife Cindy came in and tried one and said, “This is good; we need to get more of these.”
The texture for the cookie was surprisingly good for a cookie that is wheat free and egg free and you could see and taste the chocolate chips in the brownie. In addition, the brownie fully satisfied my current craving for sweets. As a result of the family’s semi-unanimous approval, this snack is now a new addition to our snack food/dessert/road trip food rotation. If you have tried these, what do you think of them?
by Jason | Jun 4, 2010 | Blog
The summer camp that our daughter is attending this year Camp Riverview for Girls called us to ask about ice cream novelties. Mayfield Dairy manufactures all of the ice cream novelty products that they purchase. So the camp called Cindy, my wife, to see if Mayfield Dairy products were peanut and tree nut free. It was great that they called and Cindy immediately jumped into research mode.
Mayfield is a regional dairy that produces milk and other dairy products for sale in most of the Southeastern United States. Unfortunately, their website is extremely lacking in information regarding product ingredients or allergens. In fact, they have no nutritional information on their website at all. This is an area where they certainly need to improve. The good news is that they were extremely helpful when Cindy called them.
Here is the slightly edited text of the email that Cindy sent to the Camp Director.
“Mayfield Push Pops are safe! I spent the last hour on the phone with the two plant quality assurance coordinators of the two plants where Mayfield’s novelty products are made. It gets a little tricky as in Birmingham they make some products that are safe. However, if they are low on inventory, they will have their Toledo plant (Frost Bites) produce some products and in some cases those are not made on a dedicated line. This is what I learned:
In the Birmingham plant the following products are made on a dedicated line where no peanut/nut is ever run:
Jr Bars -These are the one stick novelties as opposed to the two-stick novelties which they call a paddle bar. These Jr. Bars are as follows:
Brown Cow Jrs. – which is chocolate covered ice cream bars,
Fudge Bar Jrs.
Pop Stix Jrs. – Orange, Cherry and Grape, Sour Pop Jrs.
(NOTE – large two stick “paddle bars” in these same flavors are NOT safe)
Mini Ice Cream Sandwiches – NOT the Regular size
(NOTE that while the Birmingham plant makes a safe regular size ice cream sandwich, in the event they are low on inventory, the Toledo plant takes up the slack and they do not produce these on a dedicated line. So they cannot guarantee that it is made on a dedicated line.)
Any 3 oz. ice cream cup (not 6 oz.) — They make light (3% butterfat) in vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and orange sherbet. Also, safe are the No Sugar Added 3 oz cups.
In the Toledo plant, the following products are made on a dedicated line where no peanut/nut is ever run:
Regular sized Neopolitan Ice Cream Sandwiches are made on a dedicated line (he said the regular sized vanilla is made on a line with Moose Tracks – peanuts/nuts and a butter pecan)
Push Pops Orange Sherbet Pops.
Thanks for calling me.”
If you live in an area where Mayfield products are sold, I hope this will help. As always, please read the label of everything you buy every time you shop. The goal is provide you some additional food items to consider. I hope to update our Safe Food List – Ice Cream Novelties sometime this weekend to incorporate these items.
Do you have any ice cream or ice cream novelties that are peanut and tree nut safe that you enjoy?
by Jason | May 26, 2010 | Blog
I was reading a blog post today on VickiesIckies (a great blog by the way) about how some parents bring cupcakes to school for birthday celebrations which the kids with food allergies cannot eat leaving them excluded from the celebration. Sometimes the treat is brought at the last minute or without being the teacher’s prior knowledge leaving the parent of the allergic child little or no time to bring a substitute treat. The school’s answer was, “the allergic child needs to learn to deal with it”. I starting thinking about how amazing it has been in our experience (and perhaps in yours too) that kids are often much more compassionate than adults about another child’s food allergy.
For example, my daughter has a friend who became upset with her father (a good friend by the way who shared this story with us) for eating peanuts in the car because she was worried that our daughter might accidentally be exposed to the peanuts during a carpool sometime in the future. The 8-year old girl became so insistent that her father eventually pulled over and threw away his peanuts. When our child was much younger her preschool teacher once told me that from time to time, parents would send in peanut butter into their nut free classroom and the children would immediately take the “offending item” directly from their lunchboxes to the teacher saying, “I can’t have this here”. These children were three! We have heard parents tell us that their kids did not want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch because they would be playing with our kids later in the day. Maybe we are just fortunate that we have sweet friends, but I think there is something more to it than that.
I think kids are generally concerned about their food allergic friends because they love them and don’t want them to be hurt. Avoiding a particular food around their food allergic friend is their way of showing them that they love them. Parents sometimes, myself included, often look for the most convenient course of action. I will say, we are very blessed to have many adult friends that frequently bend over backwards and go far beyond the call of duty to accommodate our kids’ food allergies at their parties, for soccer snacks, etc. But, we are wondering if you have had the same experience with kids showing great compassion as it relates to your child’s food allergy?
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